Abstract: The Fermi-Hubbard model (FHM) describes the interplay between kinetic energy and onsite interaction of particles on a lattice. Cold atoms in an optical lattice have proven to be a particularly suitable platform to probe its properties, complementing analytical and numerical simulations. Most of the experimental works, however, have focussed so far on the SU(2) case, featuring spin-1/2 particles. In our experiment, we implement the SU(N) FHM, which describes particles with N spin components and presents a richer and still poorly understood physics compared with the SU(2) case. To do so, we use ytterbium-173, which naturally features a SU(6)-symmetry in the ground state, and allows us to investigate the SU(N) FHM for N smaller or equal to 6. After loading the atoms in a 2D square optical lattice, we probe the thermodynamics of the system looking at different observables as a function of temperature, interactions and spin components, and we benchmark our measurements with theoretical models.
Location: PSC 2136